Latest Gartner report shows that mobile phone sales are down overall and Samsung still leads the pack, but Huawei may be primed for a major year

It appears that there is some minor slowdown in regards to the overall growth of mobile phone sales. According to research firm Gartner Inc., worldwide mobile phone sales amounted to 1.75 billion total units for 2012 which was a solid number, but represented slightly disappointing 1.7 percent decline from 2011 sales. Moreover, while Q4 2012 smartphone sales saw record smartphone sales of 207.7 million total units, which was up 38.3 percent from the Q4 2011— the overall demand for feature phones remained weak throughout 2012. Gartner found that overall phone sales totaled 264.4 million units in Q4 2012, which was down 19.3 percent from Q4 2011 and even found that sales will continue to drop for 2013 as well.

Additionally, the latest Gartner report pretty much solidified what we already knew— Samsung and Apple are far and away the top manufacturers in all the land by owning a 52% market share– though there may be a surprising competitor lurking in the shadows. Samsung held steady as the world’s #1 smartphone by having 64.5 million units sold for Q4 2012, up a whopping 85.3% from Q4 2011; Samsung also sold 384.6 million mobile phones for 2012, 53.5% of which were accounted by smartphone sales. Something surprising that resulted from Q4 2012 is the rapid ascension of a new brand that is quickly becoming familiar with consumers. Huawei had a surprisingly solid Q4 2012 by selling 27.2 smartphones to mobile users— which represented a 73.8% increase from Q4 2011. Additionally, Gartner is predicting a major year for Huawei as they have some superphones on the way that will go directly at the likes of Samsung and Apple.

Conceived as Spock’s 4th cousin, Roy has had quite the life. He was born in beautiful San Jose, California, raised in Los Angeles, California and now resides in the greater New York City area. He has always been fascinated and obsessed with technology, especially the continuous advancements of mobile platforms. He was a Blackberry slave since his undergrad days at the University of Southern California until realizing in Feb. 2011, there were greener pastures in the land of Android. His first Android phone was the Motorola Atrix 4G, and he hasn’t looked back. He currently works in corporate media, enjoys following media and technology trends, reading a good book, weightlifting, playing on his XBOX 360 and conversing with total strangers.